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Vettel flies to Hungarian GP pole

Sebastian Vettel stormed to his seventh pole position of the season as Red Bull locked out the front row of the grid for the Hungarian Grand Prix

The German leapt to the head of the field halfway through the final part of qualifying with a time of 1m18.773s, and was never headed after that, his team-mate Mark Webber ending up 0.419s slower in second place.

Webber, who slid wide at Turn 15 on his first flying lap of Q3, was unable to improve on his final attempt, meaning that Vettel was already guaranteed pole while he was still midway around his last lap.

Ferrari secured the second row of the grid with Fernando Alonso ahead of Felipe Massa. Alonso's best lap in Q3 made him the only non-Red Bull driver to dip below 1m20s all weekend.

Lewis Hamilton's McLaren and Nico Rosberg's Mercedes were next up with Vitaly Petrov producing the shock of the session as he not only took a career-best seventh spot, but also out-qualified his team-mate Robert Kubica by a place.

Impressive performances by Sauber's Pedro de la Rosa and Williams driver Nico Hulkenberg brought the pair into the top 10.

World champion Jenson Button was a shock elimination in Q2 as the McLaren driver could do no better than 11th after complaining that the grip he had during the morning had disappeared.

His fate, and that of Rubens Barrichello, was sealed when both Hulkenberg and De la Rosa pumped in quick times to take them into the top 10 in the final minute.

Michael Schumacher had yet another difficult afternoon, the seven-time world champion only managing 14th place on the grid in his Mercedes.

Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi was eliminated in Q1, the Japanese driver being baulked by a Hispania at Turn 14 on his final flying lap. After entering the pitlane, appeared ignored an instruction to stop at scrutineering, although the driver denied he had done anything wrong.

Timo Glock put Virgin on top of the new teams for only the third time this season in 19th, while Sakon Yamamoto had his most convincing performance since returning to F1. Despite qualifying 24th, he was just five hundredths of a second slower than his Hispania team-mate Bruno Senna.


Pos  Driver         Team                   Q1         Q2          Q3
 1.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault       1:20.417   1:19.573   1:18.773
 2.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault       1:21.132   1:19.531   1:19.184
 3.  Alonso         Ferrari                1:21.278   1:20.237   1:19.987
 4.  Massa          Ferrari                1:21.299   1:20.857   1:20.331
 5.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes       1:21.455   1:20.877   1:20.499
 6.  Rosberg        Mercedes               1:21.212   1:20.811   1:21.082
 7.  Petrov         Renault                1:21.558   1:20.797   1:21.229
 8.  Kubica         Renault                1:21.159   1:20.867   1:21.328
 9.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari         1:21.891   1:21.273   1:21.411
10.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth      1:21.598   1:21.275   1:21.710
11.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1:21.422   1:21.292
12.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1:21.478   1:21.331
13.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1:22.080   1:21.517
14.  Schumacher     Mercedes               1:21.840   1:21.630
15.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:21.982   1:21.897
16.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes   1:21.789   1:21.927
17.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:21.978   1:21.998
18.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari         1:22.222
19.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth        1:24.050
20.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth         1:24.120
21.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth         1:24.199
22.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth        1:25.118
23.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth           1:26.391
24.  Yamamoto       HRT-Cosworth           1:26.453

All Timing Unofficial

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